I needed to install OpenVPN(open source virtual private network) in my Linux machine to be able to access our staging server. OpenVPN allows you to establish a secure point to point access to network resources and services.

OpenVPN can be used in two ways – Server and Client. OpenVPN server is the system that you wish to use as VPN end-point or the one you want to access. In my case what I needed to do is to install OpenVPN as client or the one making a service request.

There you go! By this time, you should be able to access the application you want to test 🙂 However in our case we needed to setup the IP address of the server that we are trying to gain access in our hosts file. From the terminal, we type:
[user]@exist:~$ sudo su -
[sudo] password for [user]: [input password]
root@[user]:~# vi /etc/hosts

Then input the IP address and the corresponding name of the web server we are trying to access at the end of the line.

I’ve been using Ubuntu since 2009, then on I only knew it was an open source, secure Debian-based Linux operating system that most of our developers use so might as well use it.

I’ve never really cared about its story not until I read the book “Global Voices: The Compilation” by Craig and Marc Kielburger earlier this year where Archbishop Desmund Tutu contributed in the foreword:

“In Southern Africa we have a concept called Ubuntu – which is that you cannot exist as a human being in isolation . You can’t be human all by yourself. What you do, what I do affects the whole world.”

Wow! This was a refreshing idea for me. Ubuntu! what a strong word! Reading more About Ubuntu, I couldn’t agree more with some of their Code of Conduct – be considerate, be respectful and be collaborative.

Mitch Albom supports this idea in his book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” where he emphasized that we are all connected:

“…there are no random acts. that we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind.”

Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 13: $MFTMirr does not match $MFT (record 0).Failed to mount ‘/dev/sdb1’: Input/output error NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it’s a SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g. /dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the ‘dmraid’ documentation for more details.

To fix, first install ntfsprogs utility by typing in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs

Then type

sudo ntfsfix /dev/partitionName

In my case, sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdb1

To check if the fix was successful, these commands should be displayed:

I don’t want to annoy my colleagues with the music I’m listening, but the sounds in my company issued laptop, ASUS K52J with OS(Ubuntu 10.10) persistently comes from the speakers even after plugging my headphones 😦

Was able to resolve this issue by installing Linux Alsa Driver Modules